It wasnt Angels fault.

[CordelliasHeart]

Neither The Gypsys, Nor Xander, nor Even angel himself, seem to be able to go "Supernatural compulsion, he wasnt Culpable, move on" towoards the people Angelus Killed when his soul was gone.

Is it just how close they'd been to those people or what.

 

[iShower4free]

It has to be that, specially with Xander. He never really liked Angel in seasons 1 and 2 because of his feelings for Buffy but he at least learned to trust him and stopped openly hating him. But after Jenny's death that all changed. The Gypsys only hated Angel so much because of what Angelus had done to one of their own, not because of the simple fact that he was a vampire and had killed people in general. Angel constantly lives with the guilt of what Angelus had done because to most and sometimes to himself they are things he as well did although he was a soul away from the body at the time. I know some still debate the culpability of vampires when their souls are returned to them, but at least in my opinion they are completely different entities.

 

[Blaze]

It's funny that people use this mentality that Angel was not responsible because he didn't have a soul, yet people will say the exact opposite when it comes to Spike (eg: when he attempted to raped Buffy). I'm not saying this is the case for you, I was just generalizing.

That being said, I completely agree with you Angel wasn't responsible, Angelus was. Although I do understand where the gypsies were coming from, if some man had come and killed all my family, I wouldn't give two shit about what the person's motive was or why they did it, my number one priority would be that they get what they deserve at the moment. And the way I see it, what the gipsy did, did bring a lot of good while still punishing Angel, so I am ok with that, they actually gave Angel a chance to redeem himself, and I think that was more than fair in this situation.

As for Xander, I don't think it was as much that he hated Angel, but more or less that he was really jealous. Then when finally Angel turned into Angelus, he actually had a reason to hate him so he could lash out and it was being justified.

I do think the gang moved on from that mentality and never did they truly hold Angel responsible for the killings as Angelus. They held Angelus responsible, but not necessarily Angel himself. As for s3, when he came back, they didn't know if he was good or would become bad again, so I can see why they would worry. The only one I think that truly holds Angel responsible is Angel himself, but the whole point of the story is that he is trying to redeem himself.

 

[Black Eye Guy]

It's funny that people use this mentality that Angel was not responsible because he didn't have a soul, yet people will say the exact opposite when it comes to Spike (eg: when he attempted to raped Buffy). I'm not saying this is the case for you, I was just generalizing.

But there is a difference, People use Spikes good things in his favour and just drop the bad stuff. If he gets the credit of the good, he gets burdened with the bad.


I also disagree that he's not responsible, Angelus is still him without a soul. We know vampires are made of the person they take over, as blaze said like with Angelis killing Angels family. But Angel holds himself accountable for all that.

 

[iShower4free]

It's funny that people use this mentality that Angel was not responsible because he didn't have a soul, yet people will say the exact opposite when it comes to Spike (eg: when he attempted to raped Buffy). I'm not saying this is the case for you, I was just generalizing.

The main reason I hold it against Spike is that the groups relationship began with Spike the vampire not Spike the soul. He was starting to be accepted by the group and claimed to love Buffy.

 

[Blaze]

But there is a difference, People use Spikes good things in his favour and just drop the bad stuff. If he gets the credit of the good, he gets burdened with the bad.

Absolutely agree, I meant that it goes both ways. Let's say that you hold both Spike and Angel accountable for their actions as vampires, I absolutely respect that opinion. Let's say you hold neither accountable for their actions as vampire, also fine by me. But if you decide to ignore the bad things they did, you almost have to ignore the good too, like in this case for Spike, if someone uses the good things Spike did as a vampire, automaticly you have to take into account the bad things, you can't just leave them out! So I agree with you, I meant more when people try to say "Oh Spike is not responsible because he was a vampire, oh but yet he's so much better than Angel because he did a few good actions." In my mind it doesn't work like that, like you said, if you decide that yes it matters, than take the good and the bad, if you decide his vampire self doesn't compare to his souled self, than sorry but you have to forget both the good and the bad, not just the bad. And if you apply those rules to Spike, than by association they should apply to Angel. So it bothers me if someone says Angel is not accountable but Spike is, how is that logical, to me it isn't.

I also disagree that he's not responsible, Angelus is still him without a soul. We know vampires are made of the person they take over, as blaze said like with Angelis killing Angels family. But Angel holds himself accountable for all that.

Again, I'm completely fine with that mentality, the way you use it makes sense. I myself am a bit in between, yes the vampire self absolutely is made of the person they take over. It was seen in every vampire, Harmony, Spike, Angel, Vamp Willow etc. I just think that since the vampire has no conscience, they can't be 100% accountable for their actions as a soulless creature. I can see why people would choose to hold him accountable. I just think the logic as to apply to the whole verse.

 

[ILLYRIAN]

It's that soul question again.
Does having a soul stop a human from killing? No, Giles and Ben.
But a soul will stop a vampire from killing? How, or even why?
Given that a soul has nothing to do with a vampire killing or not, and given that Angel is Angelus with a soul, (Angelus is Angel without a soul) then Angel is totally responsible for the actions of Angelus.

 

[Blaze]

It's that soul question again.
Does having a soul stop a human from killing? No, Giles and Ben.
But a soul will stop a vampire from killing? How, or even why?
Given that a soul has nothing to do with a vampire killing or not, and given that Angel is Angelus with a soul, (Angelus is Angel without a soul) then Angel is totally responsible for the actions of Angelus.

The thing with a souless vampire is that they kill for absolutely no reason (this is debatable as some kill for food, but Angelus is clearly shown to do it for pleasure), while a soul may not stop someone from killing, it stops people from killing for no reason. It gives a sense of why kill vs why not kill. Giles had a legitimate reason to kill Ben, leaving him alive might have meant that hundreds of others might eventually have to pay. He took the decision based on greater good. Souless vampires don't give a shit about why they should or shouldn't kill, killing is in their nature, they crave the blood, they are basicly animals. You are absolutely right in saying he is responsible, just as a grizzly would be responsible for killing a hunter, but I don't think you can really say it was Angel's fault. I would consider it his fault if he chose to become a vampire in the first place, but the guy didn't wish for that and obviously he has no control when he is soulless.

And again, it is shown that having a soul doesn't mean they HAVE to stop killing, we're shown Angel in s2 of AtS literally locking 20 lawyers to their death.

 

[EVIL UU]

Angel is responsible because it's his responsibility to not loose Liam's soul.

 

[white avenger]

I've never seen Angel and Angelus as two separate entities. Angel is simply Angelus with a muzzle, that muzzle taking the form of a sense of guilt and a certain desire, within limits, to accept the responsibility for his former actions. Those limits include a determination to believe that, "I'm genuinely sorry, and I promise to try and do better in the future, but I refuse to stand trial for, or pay any penalty for, the deaths and atrocities that I have perpetrated over the last two centuries. I'll feel bad about it, and tell everyone just how bad I feel at every opportunity, and I'll help the helpless, but that's just about as far as I'll go." That for some reason makes him a hero. Spike does basically the same thing, with far less brooding and bewailing his former crimes, and he's a hypocrite and an unreformed monster who only got a soul in order to "get in a girl's pants."

Angel is Angelus with Liam's soul. Liam, though, from what little we saw of him, was a drunken, lazy, skirt chasing bum, was probably a fairly decent person, or at least not a serial killer, rapist, and sadist. With his soul restored, that personality reemerged, and, overwhelmed by what he had been taking such pleasure in doing formerly, became a recluse, alternating between periods of general normalcy and bouts of alley dwelling, rat feeding, depression. And that was the state that Whistler found him in, and that was the state in which he first saw and fell in love with a 15 or16 year old girl, cleaned his act up, and followed her to Sunnydale, where he got in her pants with disastrous results.

If you see Angelus and Angel as two separate people, then, yes, Angel is not guilty of or responsible for, anything that Angelus ever did. If that is the case, then why would he feel some overwhelming desire to atone for what his, in effect, evil twin brother had done? Obviously, he wouldn't.

Unlike Dr Bruce Banner in "The Avengers," Angel never refers to Angelus as "the other guy," or any variant thereof. He knows and accepts the fact that he IS Angelus, regardless of what name he currently answers to. He can't say "Supernatural compulsion, he wasnt Culpable, move on" because he knows that it isn't true. Whatever Angelus did IS Angel's fault.

 

[Kurai]

I see what you mean, but of course, Xander has always had a grudge against Angel. Even when he started to trust him during Season 2, he still seemed to have a slight dislike for him. I mean, he didn't tell Buffy that Willow was trying to get Angel's soul back, because he was of the opinion that 'he's a soulless creature, what he's done can't be forgiven, so he should die'.

 

[Ethan Reigns]

In the first season, we are told when we see a friend who has been sired that we are not looking at our friend, we are looking at the thing that killed him.

When Angel battles Eyghon, he refers to Angelus as the demon inside him.

Angel's demon seems to be sort of like malaria, a disease that you can never get rid of once you catch it (and a neighbour I had when I was growing up in Toronto had malaria until his death at age 84).

Angel is aware of what the demon inside him is capable of, but seemed to be unaware of the loophole in the Gypsy curse that brought out Angelus.

Angel in his own show kills some lawyers (or at least allows Darla and Drusilla to do it when he could have stopped it), runs a branch plant of Hell Incorporated and kills the Drogyn. Somehow, I don't think Angel is all sweetness and light - he seems to have a dark side even without Angelus.

 

[iShower4free]

Lets also not forget that its not like the room full of lawyers was a room full of innocent children. They were a bunch of corrupt killers.

 

[white avenger]

Angel in his own show kills some lawyers (or at least allows Darla and Drusilla to do it when he could have stopped it), runs a branch plant of Hell Incorporated and kills the Drogyn. Somehow, I don't think Angel is all sweetness and light - he seems to have a dark side even without Angelus.

Yeah, Angel pretty much sics Darla and Dru on the lawyers. just like he basically does the same thing in Season 5 when he has Lindsey killed by Lorne. He gets others to do the dirty work killing humans, so, technically, he remains innocent.

As for Drogyn, I'm not sure that he actually qualifies as human,since he's immortal. A Higher Being of some sort, probably, recruited much the same way that Cordy was, to guard the Well throughout eternity.

 

[EVIL UU]

[MENTION=12155]iShower4free[/MENTION]

Angel wasnt even aware that he could lose his sould so how can he be responsible when it happens?

I'm sure his victims would be delighted to hear that. Angel had over a 100 years to research the curse, to learn the truth. He did nothing. And by the way we're talking here about a vampire having sex with a vampire slayer, what could possibly go wrong? I mean, does this corpse even read literature? Hello, star-crossed lovers.

 

[Kean]

[MENTION=12155]iShower4free[/MENTION]


I'm sure his victims would be delighted to hear that. Angel had over a 100 years to research the curse, to learn the truth. He did nothing. And by the way we're talking here about a vampire having sex with a vampire slayer, what could possibly go wrong? I mean, does this corpse even read literature? Hello, star-crossed lovers.

But research what exactly? He was told by the Gypsy elder that he had been given his soul to suffer, for his pain to be eternal as theirs would be. That was the truth as far as Angel could see, it was certainly the truth for 100 years. What motivation would he have to research it? The only one I can think of is to remove it and that is something that ultimately he would have feared, bringing the demon back to the fore.

A lot of things are Angel's fault, but not knowing about the clause in the curse isn't one of them.

 

[iShower4free]

Buffy being a Vampire Slayer is irrelevant where the curse is concerned but I know what you mean lol Its just asking for trouble.

 

[white avenger]

But research what exactly?

Right.

It was my impression that the spell and just about everything associated with it was obscure at best, and downright unknown at the worst. What WAS actually known was apparently handed down through word of mouth from one elder to the next, and he, in turn, assigned someone else to watch and keep track of Angel, to make sure that he never did achieve that "moment of perfect happiness " without actually knowing the full details of why they did so.The reason that he did go over the line with Buffy was at least partially because Jenny Calendar lost focus with what she was actually in Sunnydale for because she fell in love with Giles. That laxness cost her her life, but not before she managed to recover the spell that would eventually be used to restore Angel's soul.

It appeared that the only reason that Jenny was able to relocate the spell at all was because of her "cyber pagan," whatever that really was, skills that Angel, obviously, did not possess, so whatever information existed in that mode was totally inaccessible to him. Add to that the fact that he had never had any indication whatsoever that the spell, and his soul, were total, 100% permanent in nature, with no "escape clause" included. Working under that assumption, he had no real reason to even bother trying.

 

[Cordy_Chase]

It is true that Angel can not be entirely held responsible for his soulless actions as he did not lose his soul willingly however this does not change the horribleness of those actions or the fact that someone dear to another was lost. As it was in the case of the Gypsy clan, a very close and protective people who due to the cruel mistreatment they constantly suffer are fiercely angry beings. The same goes for Giles who felt very deeply for Jenny Calendar and was just beginning to make a connection with her despite the lies and disagreements which had presented a struggle. A connection it had been difficult for him to open up to after evading it for many years by hiding among books. It then got worse for poor Giles when Angel had held him captive and tortured him for hours.

Having also known Jenny personally was simply the proverbial straw for Xander who had to watch the one he loved being won not just by another and someone who she doesn't belong with but that which she is destined to be slaying. An inhuman creature who feeds on human beings and has a history of vicious, remorseless murder. He has no idea what he happens to have in common with Angel, that like he was twice Angel had become what he is by also being fooled by a beautiful face. I am not sure anyone knows that, even Buffy (although she did meet his maker).

It's kind of difficult to see the fact that he is a victim himself of having his soul forced from him beneath all that is is not?